India’s rising star Lakshya Sen registered one of the biggest results of his career so far as he defeated world No 5 Anthony Ginting with a dominant performance at the German Open Super 300 badminton tournament in Muelheim An Der Ruhron Thursday.
It was Lakshya’s first win on the senior tour against a top-five ranked player in the world (in a completed match) as he took just 34 minutes to outplay fourth seed Ginting 21-7, 21-9. He will now take on his compatriot HS Prannoy.
In a day of some remarkable upsets in Germany, world No 12 Lakshya defeating the fourth seed Ginting wasn’t perhaps the biggest but the performance and the scoreline was certainly significant. Lakshya stormed through the match and never looked in any threat of being derailed by Ginting, except for a brief challenge in the middle of the second game.
Earlier, world championships silver winner Kidambi Srikanth progressed to the men’s singles quarterfinals but PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal exited the women’s competition following second-round losses.
The seventh seeded Sindhu, a 2019 World Champion, however, lost 14-21, 21-15, 14-21 against China’s Zhang Yi Man in 55 minutes in the women’s singles second round.
Nehwal, who has been struggling with fitness issues, lost against eighth seeded Thai Ratchanok Intanon, going down 10-21, 15-21.
Srikanth notched up an impressive victory to advance to the men’s singles quarterfinals. The 29-year-old defeated China’s Guang Zu Lu 21-16, 21-23, 21-18 in 67 minutes. He will next face Olympic champion and top seed Viktor Axelsen of Denmark, who beat France’s Toma Junior Popov 21-17, 21-10 in another match.
Later, Prannoy also qualified for the men’s singles quarterfinals with a tight win over Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu. The Indian took the first game and trailed 16-20 in the second but fought back to close out the match 21-19, 24-22.
Srikanth took the first game and had a lead at the mid-game interval in the second, but Lu staged a gritty fightback to take the match to a decider. There was little to choose between the two players in the third game before Srikanth eventually pulled ahead and closed out the match.
Srikanth, who was forced to pull out of the India Open after testing positive for Covid-19, dished out a gritty performance to outlast his world no 27 opponent in a thrilling match that lasted an hour and seven minutes.
The Indian made a good start, opening up a 8-3 lead early on but Lu made a late charge before Srikanth managed to enter the break at 11-10. The duo were locked at 14-14 after the interval when Srikanth stepped ahead with a four-point burst to seal the opening game.
After lagging initially, Srikanth managed to eke out a 15-11 lead in the second game but Lu kept fighting for each point and eventually snatched the second game after saving a match point to stay alive in the contest.
In the decider, Srikanth was 10-5 up and though Lu made it 15-14 at one stage, the Indian quickly wrest back control and shut the doors on his rival to extend his head-to-head count to 3-0 over Lu.
A look at how the third game progressed:
Earlier in the day, it proved to be a disappointing start to the European leg for Sindhu, who will be one of the contenders at next week’s All England Championships.
The Indian couldn’t get going as Zhang broke off at 5-5 and jumped to a 11-5 lead with six straight points. She kept her nose ahead to pocket the opening game without much ado.
Stung by the reversal, Sindhu made a comeback in the second game as she fought her way to a slender 11-10 lead at the break and then slowly marched ahead to bounce back into the contest.
But the Chinese found her bearing in the decider as she moved away after an initial duel to grab a 11-8 advantage at the interval. She didn’t give the Indian much chance after that and soon shut the doors on her fancied opponent.
Quarterfinal matches for India:
Inputs from PTI